Hunger
by Impassive Tears
Summary: I told my Dad to look under the bed, for monsters. Maybe I should have told him to look into my head, too.
1. Hello

**This is another multi-chapter, and will be updated every two to three months, 10+ words at a time. The prologue below may seem confusing, but stay with me.**

* * *

"Shut up!"

All it took was a simple scream, a voice that delivered the motivation to cease it. A simple tear, rip, in the tangible mist of feigned tranquillity. It shouldn't have been a queer phrase, yet it was only one to be used aggressively towards another.

Everyone knew Tweek Tweak was a loner.

He barely spoke, for each word betrayed his shameful secrets, problems, everything that ruined him. He kept it to himself, and the trembles that ran through his body were not from rage, or anger, but fear. Pure, undeniable fear.

_Freak._

He couldn't take it anymore. Nothing the voice ever said fazed him, everything was just a testimonial of his own mindset. The gnomes, they were real. An all-night terror that drove him insane. They say he was already insane, that the gnomes were one of the many illusions conjured up by paranoia.

The voice got louder, screamed and cried, and he could only scream and cry alongside. The emotions built up inside him, and ran through his veins, more effective than caffeine, more exhilarating than adrenaline.

They took him away, strapped him in bonds he could not break out from. It was then, when others finally allowed him to express his angst, but disabled him to vent through the subtle mechanisms of pain and discomfort, that he let it out, but slowly.

The pace of a tear falling down a cheek.

It just took one scream to lead Tweek Tweak to the arms of Craig Tucker.

Doom cuddled him close.


	2. Admittance

**Just a note to say multiple stories I have published will be removed in the course of 48 hours. These stories include the wounds trilogy (Bruises, Cuts, Healing), Dysfunction, possibly Fears and Trembles, Get out of my house and When hazel met grey. If you don't want me to delete any of these works, please PM me. Also, my decision in deleting them does not entitle you to copy and republish them, not at all.**

* * *

Tweek didn't liken to straightjackets. They restrained him, and just to be sure, he was encased in walls that could cease the most aggressive patients. Tweek didn't think he was aggressive. He also didn't think his actions necessarily required the need for the restraints, the isolation, but he had no voice to speak with.

Well, he did. Just, it never quite expressed the words he intended to say.

The voice was quiet as he was lead down the hallway, hearing a quiet click behind him. His eyes snapped to the ground, his vision partially blocked by his chained hands. He turned to the nurse taking him, and realised her gaze was not on him, perhaps purposefully. Tweek guessed that was to be expected; no one sane liked to stare at garbage, at ugly creatures.

**You missed one.**

At freaks.

Tweek was unchained as he was directed through the door, a little bit of freedom granted at finding a seat. He looked over the other patients, panic rising through him. The people in white coats was enough, but the fact that there was _mental teenagers _there, right there, none restrained – except that one kid in the corner – made his stomach queasy, his eyes widen then squeeze shut.

**Welcome home.**

Tweek looked again, but away from the humans, if he could refer to them as those. He didn't have a clear concept of what they had done, what they were, to belong there, so even awarding them the privilege of their race seemed inappropriate. To be human, you have to be normal. Tweek was no exception. He fanned his fingers, curled them, and stretched them again. They were clean, pale, unmarked. Some part of Tweek wished the rest of his body, the rest of _him_, was the same.

"Karen McCormick." Tweek glanced towards the girl, no more than a few years younger. Perhaps that was better, at least for a chance of a peace of mind, given his long list of intense fears, but his curiosity deceived him. Why had she been taken in at such a young age? He estimated her to be about 16, though her small stature and skinny frame lead him to other uninformed conclusions. Her hair was in rat-tails, her body littered with yellowed bruises and thin scars, and her coffee eyes were highlighted with dark shadows, but Tweek knew that, all those things aside, she might have been beautiful, if only in the past, or on another, future, day.

"Why don't you tell the group why you are here, Karen?" Tweek acknowledged the woman speaking, supposedly the group councillor. He was raised to never judge on the first encounter, but he had already taken a dislike to the meetings, and therefore, to the instigator. Her eyes, green, were framed with black, bold glasses, balanced on the bridge of her wide, freckled nose. Red locks curtained her face, and fell to her slim back, concealed by her floral dress. Tweek didn't like flowers that much.

Karen's dainty nose wrinkled, and she began to play with her wispy hair, prompting Tweek to relive his torment of resisting his own desire. Not that he was going to _play _with it, exactly, but he needed something, _anything_, to express his trauma and anxiety, to take it. He deserved the pain that would result.

"My brother, Kenny, he visits me…at night. He comes in a costume, like a hero or-or…a guardian angel." She took up a dream-like expression, her eyes hazing over. The orbs were pointed at the tiles, but Tweek suspected she was looking at something else entirely. Perhaps a memory, or an illusion. "He protects me." Her voice was high-pitched, yet small, quiet – softly spoken. Tweek twitched on the wooden stool, tense over her disposition. Karen's eyes narrowed, her face screwing up in blatant annoyance and anger.

"They say he's not real. They say he's dead." She spat the words out, at a louder volume, and Tweek felt them slashing at the air they all breathed. "They say I'm schizophrenic." She shook her head the slightest bit. "They…stopped him coming." She pushed up a sleeve of her flimsy cardigan, exposing more scars, only slightly thicker.

He stopped himself from comparing them. Seeing, hearing things that weren't there…He was registered as having schizophrenia, too, and so many others things. Some were already listed, some newly diagnosed, and they were all stashed together in one big, yellow file. Tweek had peeked once or twice. He regretted knowing what was wrong with him. At least, he was oblivious for the better part. He most certainly did not want to know _why _those things were wrong with him.

"Thank you for sharing, Karen. Craig Tucker?" Tweek finally cast a gaze over the others, spotting three boys, and two girls, including Karen. Not knowing who Craig was, seeing as all were silent, solemn, doing their own quiet ministrations, he focused on their appearances, not wondering about identities, for the moment.

The girl sitting next to Karen was around a year older than Tweek – he placed her around 19, 20. She had short, cropped blonde hair, the bleached sort. She was pretty, but not in an adorable, vulnerable fashion. Tweek could see the emotional strength behind those piercing blue eyes, and the determination stitched into her high cheekbones.

Tweek switched to a brown-haired boy, hair so dark it could have been black, if that was scientifically possible. His skin was almost translucent, and Tweek could mark each vein trailing down his neck to his collarbones, until it was covered with a long-sleeved maroon shirt. Tweek guessed the boy was his age, perhaps older by a few odd months. Their eyes met across the room, and Tweek jittered nonsensically at the unfathomable grey the boy's eyes showed. Tweek yelped as he caught sight of a dirty finger inclined towards him. The middle finger.

The woman called the boy's name again, and the boy Tweek had previously seen graced her with a reply. Tweek watched Craig talk, or, rather, form a few nasal words that failed to satisfy her, such as _fuck off_. Craig's black sneakers repetitively tapped on the floor, mirrored by Tweek's scuffed ones.

"Fine." Craig snapped, growing tired of her leading questions and demands. "You all know my name, and my…issue?" His voice flattened. "I like blood. I like watching it drip from a cut. I like causing it to drip from a cut." His head tilted. "I love it." Craig's eyes had remained fixed on Tweek's the whole time, and he gave the blond a perplexing smirk, making Tweek jolt back, releasing a scream of terror at the words, and the perverse action.

His head smashed onto the tiles.

* * *

Tweek hadn't been in the institution long, only a few days. That had been his first meeting. He had since been taken to a less restricting room, no straightjackets in the case of _good behaviour_, though he still had to be chained when taken somewhere, _just in case_.

He stared at his tray, but screamed as another tray dropped harshly next to his on the table. Tweek was on a lot of mediation, medical drugs that silenced the voice, and slowed his thoughts and movements, but even delayed, his reactions were indifferent to any sudden move.

Especially to Craig Tucker, who was sitting right next to him, picking at his own lunch. Tweek held his breath, his fists curling on the table as the pressure built to an uncomfortable level, determined by the mutual, uneasy silence, and the fact he was in the presence of a guy who _loved _blood. Tweek highly doubted he wouldn't bleed _him_ out.

"I was lying." Tweek didn't like the monotone voice – it was too deep, too impassive. He wanted the boy to go away, for a lot of reasons, but Craig's speech was a prominent one as the brunet carried on speaking flatly. "I lie a lot." Why was Craig telling him that?

"I don't love blood." Tweek's breath evened, his fists uncurled, and the blond turned around, his eyes flitting over the other. Craig leant in close, and Tweek flinched, thinking dreadful things, but then realised Craig was just making a move to get up again.

"Interesting, isn't it?" Craig asked, and Tweek understood it was not a question. "How easily I can trick someone like you. Make you scared with simple words, lead you to fear me." A smirk crawled onto Craig's face once more, and Tweek's teeth grinded in silent annoyance.

Craig turned to walk away, and Tweek turned to the table, pushing both trays away from him. He swore he could hear a single statement clearly emitting from the retreating teenager.

_I might love your blood, though._

* * *

Tweek realised Craig was insane. He knew he was already insane, just more than he thought. Tweek watched between fingers as Craig wound a web of false stories, accusations, and he just didn't understand it. Though, there was only a thin, faint line between being dishonest, and keeping quiet.

Tweek hadn't talked much since he was taken to the asylum. He never had. Perhaps that was why he was safe for so long. He had no friends to frighten, no friends to share his secrets and fears with. No-one could hear the voice in his head, and no-one could read the memories that passed through his thoughts continuously, shocking him when he least expected for the past to hunt him down.

Tweek looked around his room, with brown, neutral walls, as opposed to the blank padded ones he had endured being locked in upon his arrival, caving in around a small bed, an uncomfortable mattress and white sheets set on it, and a sink. Tweek moved to it, brushing his teeth hastily. They had rationed his coffee intake, even going to take away the caffeine from the beverage. Still, Tweek's teeth were healthy, pointed, if a tiny bit discoloured from the drink.

He looked in the mirror, flitting over his image. Of course, there was a layer of protection over the glass, just in case he slipped back into his self-harm regimes. Tweek wondered if the other patients had the same precaution installed. His eyes were met with identical ones, wide, hazel ones, and they cast a quick scan over the rest of his appearance.

His nose was freckled, not too wide, and not too long. There was a speck of dirt on it, and Tweek washed it off immediately, worrying about the germs. The golden blemishes trailed from his nose, going vertically across his pale cheeks, and his forehead, though fainter. His forehead was mostly covered by his fringe, if one could call it that. His hair was messy, untidy, getting into his eyes. He preferred it when he was young, and it stuck up in all directions. It hadn't bothered him as much. Now, the vibrant yellow colour had faded, and it fell limply in a short, wavy strands, stopping somewhere just below his chin.

"Tweek Tweak." Tweek stepped away from the mirror, towards the nurse who was in the hallway. He lifted his wrists, and she locked them cautiously. His eyes drifted to the floor again, following his black skinny jeans. His Mom and Dad had always tried to have him dress normal, look normal, to cover up the monster, the _monsters_, inside.

He was taken back to the group counselling room, where a new boy had arrived. Tweek studied him curiously as he was unchained. His fear of the other teenagers in the room hadn't dissapeared, but Tweek figured that, should they try and attack him, it would do some good to know who they were, be able to tell someone. Maybe.

Tweek looked over the new patient, likening him to Craig in terms of looks. His hair was also a very dark brown, and he had a similar frame to Craig, yet his eyes were a chocolate brown, and he seemed less intimidating, less complicated. Tweek watched as he edged towards a red-haired boy, one he had seen the week prior, but hadn't had the chance to fully evaluate. It seemed all of them were quite skinny, scrawny, with some lithe muscle, not excluding the ginger, who had green eyes and a pale and freckled disposition, much like Tweek.

"Welcome to the group." The woman greeted in a warm tone. She was wearing a blouse and navy skirt that day. Tweek found out what her name was, reading her tag. Ms Jenny.

Craig was watching him again.

"Care to introduce yourself?" Tweek started as he realised she was speaking to him, not the new boy. After all, he hadn't been given the time to complete the task before Craig had seen to him being subdued. He stared away from the looming grey, and at his hands, once more.

"Nngh, Tweek." That was it; his first words to the other patients. Tweek knew there was so much weight in those words. Tension, even. Those words could have saved him, depicted him as a vulnerable, twitchy blond to protect, or endangered him more than he had already envisioned. The voice seemed so shallow and diminutive in the light of Craig's misleading phrases, and the foreboding anonymity of the other patients.

"I have s-schizophrenia." He wasn't sure whether to feel glad he pronounced the word right. "I think I have ADD, too, and - and anxiety." His fingers clutched at the worn material of his grey jumper; it hung miserably on him, baggy sleeves rolled up. "I h-hear a voice inside my head."

Tweek vaguely remembered pre-school, when everyone was made to give the same sort of introduction Tweek had just given. He had stood up, trembling, as he had always done, but with an underlined energetic disposition Tweek had not worn for years. His sentences ended with exclamation marks, and his talk of paranoid dwelling was exhilarating, a humoured regime. Others soon stopped finding it funny, so Tweek had grown to _shut the hell up_.

"Who doesn't?" Tweek looked to the ginger, a lump settling at the entrance of his throat. "Everyone hears voices…Their own ones. Just, when they start saying horrible things – people believe it's not them. They blame it on something else, someone else. They pretend they're not just getting slapped in the face with the truth, or sometimes they accept everything the "voice" is saying…But do they change those things, to make that second opinion fuck off? No." The boy smirked, his eyes meeting Tweek's widened ones.

"Thank you for the…analysis, Kyle." The councillor ceased gently. Tweek steadied his breathing, gaze blank. There was no reason to give his own comment – the boy would not listen. Would not understand. There was no way to relieve to Kyle the nights he had stayed up, tormented by the dejecting fears only highlighted by the invisible sneers, the harsh confirmations of his troubles. There was no way to tell Kyle he could not change who he was. Tweek was a freak, and that was it. Once a freak, always a freak.

If the voice was there, it would have agreed. Tweek and the voice agreed over a few things, once in a while.


	3. System

**Sorry for the wait. **

* * *

The building Tweek was in was called the Denver Psychiatric Institution for Unstable Adolescents and Young Adults. Unstable. That was what he was called. By the Doctors, at least. He had never known before. He had never cared much as to where he was going, or, rather, it was just too much of a blur to have been _able _to care. It had only been an eclipse of sorrow, confusion, frustration, despair and dread – when he thought about it.

The schedule was tight, with every figment of Tweek's life solidified at the coming of the nurse at his locked door in the morning hours. He was sent to group counselling, or to the library, or to the classroom, and then to lunch – one hour of monitored _nutritious_ consummation – then to assembly, then to free time – fifteen minutes of staring in the mirror, or at a blank hall – then lights out, keys turned. His way of living was dictated, fixed, with the exception of health check-ups on Sunday, physical education on Thursday, _Craig_.

Tweek had kept to himself. The other teenagers there triggered fear inside of him, the flush of the medicine only smoothing down the edges of his paranoid nature, and Craig made him feel the most. Everyone was mysterious, everyone had _always _been mysterious, because no one had ever liked Tweek enough to share more about themselves– but Craig had. Just an inkling, just a little insight into his stoic mind. Tweek knew Craig was a liar.

Still, Craig was as unfathomable as his grey eyes. Maybe even more so, because of the gained knowledge.

Tweek curled up on the beanbag he was on. Everything in the clinic seemed so blank and hospitalised, but the library was colourful, childlike in its presumed aims. He looked down at the book he was reading. Tweek was no longer following the curriculum, of that he was sure, yet they still assigned him _projects _to work on. He wondered if the work tasked was based on his previous school grades, or just how his mind seemed to work within the walls.

He had to read _The Inspector Calls, _and write a page-long summary of the play. He couldn't remember having done much literature at school, and he figured it was because his school was a bad one. He could say that, he was sure. The teachers had no passion in their droning instructions. Not that he witnessed much of their lessons, anyway. He had been made to sit out when he got too twitchy. The fact that he was mute was only a scrap of relief against his anxious noises and body convulsions. He wished he had been able to sit out break and lunch, too.

"I didn't think of you as a creative type." A monotone voice mused near him, and Tweek looked towards it, nipping on his upper lip as Craig came into sight 20 feet away, leaning against the feature wall, a mirage of the sky, arms crossed. Tweek's fingers froze in their position, angled to turn the first page.

"I picture you more as destroying things." Tweek didn't know how to respond, merely staring at the teen. Craig was right, yet there was no essential need for Tweek to be hearing those words. Why wouldn't Craig leave him alone? Another distinct anonymous concept.

Craig abruptly threw a small object at him, and Tweek shrieked, causing a nurse to get up from her seat, and rush over, confronting Craig, despite her small stature underneath him. She had authority, at least. Tweek overturned the item in his hand, and picked it up with two fingers on his other hand, furrowing his brows. It was merely a pen, chewed in every place he estimated human teeth was able to gnaw at. Tweek wrinkled his nose, struggling not to heave as he thought of the germs. His eyes lifted to meet Craig's, who flipped him off as the nurse walked away. Tweek had not listened to the encounter.

Craig drifted closer towards him, and Tweek managed to stifle his scream, that time. He held his breath as Craig bent slightly, leaning in to place his lips just against Tweek's ear. Tweek gasped for air, eyes widening, as Craig trailed grubby fingers along his jaw, the side of his face, and finally, the exterior of his ear, as Craig pushed his greasy hair back.

"Write your essay with this. It's ruined already, so you won't have to bother." Tweek didn't register Craig departing, keeping his eyes downcast as his face began to still. He let his fingers express his anxiety instead, ten outward appendages trembling as they gripped the play's spine, closing it.

Craig had bit his ear.

* * *

It was difficult to work out just how many patients were with him.

There were the six, if he included the boy he had not seen on the first meeting, teenagers in his group, to begin with. Karen, Craig, Kyle – the other three were anonymous, and Tweek's guesses were only configured by his observations of their personalities and appearances.

He never used to be one to observe. Then again, he had never been one to engage, either. His eyes flitted over the cafeteria, falling on the desolate teenagers sitting rigidly at their seats. He found Karen sitting alone at the long end of the table – most of them were alone, including him. Kyle was sitting next to the boy he had not seen on the first meeting, and they seemed to be talking, joking, even.

Tweek forgot how chatter and laughter were a good thing.

* * *

Once a week, Tweek was also permitted to have a bath. No razor blades given, of course, but he had about 20 minutes to wash himself, and his hair, with a few squeezes of an omniscient bottle pushed into his hands. A nurse stood watch around the corner, leaning against the wall. Tweek could just about make out her shadow, projected across the wall to his left.

Tweek ripped his clothes off, leaving them to fall onto the floor. He cast a look around the room before he slid into the bath, gasping at the initial feeling of the warm water against his skin. There was a rug on the floor, for reasons Tweek didn't get. For decoration, maybe. It still didn't feel like much of a home.

There were two other baths, too, as well as a dingy shower in the corner, with no walls surrounding it. Tweek wondered why there was more than one bath, when they weren't allowed to wash together. Perhaps it was in case one or two stopped working. Tweek hesitantly thought of a story he had been told, a while ago.

"_It's your turn, Sam." Michael called out, and all eyes fell upon the ginger-haired boy, inclined towards a pretty girl, face enhanced by the moonlit shine of her make-up. She was 2 years his junior, obviously having had snuck out from her own school's camp. _

"_Alright." Sam grinned, tugging the compliant girl closer to him as he stood up. She faltered a few steps behind him, a blush fanning over her cheeks at the display. He cleared his throat, and Tweek cringed._

"_Once, a few years ago, was a fair maiden." Sam began in a low tone, and a few boys around Tweek wolf-whistled. "She was innocent, very lovely, but one day...She went astray, rebelled against the authority in supposed control of her." He winked at the girl beside him, and Tweek watched her snag her crimson lips with her teeth, as if biting back her words._

"_She ran into a group of boys, and by the end of the night, she had a bath, to cleanse her sins." Sam laughed slightly, as if chancing a joke. "By the end of the morning, she had washed for hours." Tweek stared, grinding his teeth, as he snatched the girl's wrist, clutching it tightly, bringing her forward._

"…_Washed, in her own blood." The girl gasped as he made a motion across her neck, making an invisible incision. "The end." Tweek shut his eyes, bowing his head as he listened to footsteps trailing away from him._

_The girl gasped again._

Tweek's fingers drummed against his body, circling each blemish and bruise. The water was clear, untainted by his mother's handmade bath bomb, and he could see his naked body clearly. He curved his fingers upon each cut, digging his nails in to steal a slip of dull pain. His bones jutted out in every place, knocking against the porcelain frame of the bath.

"Tweek Tweak, you have ten minutes left." Tweek reached beneath him, pulling out the drain. His hair was already washed, his body already scrubbed. He slowly rose from the bath, picking up a towel from the rack by him to dry himself. Tweek got dressed quickly then, dressing in the clothes the nurse had chucked in. Just a plain jumper, hanging baggily off him, and sweatpants. All grey, and clinically clean.

Tweek stepped outside the bathroom with the nurse a few feet ahead of him. That was a slither of the freedom he got – the first week, he would have had a bath with the nurse sitting awkwardly on the rim, and his hands bonded together as he walked.

"Hey, Tweek." Tweek turned immediately, pupils dilating at the sight of Craig in front of him. Where was Craig's escort? It was almost lights out – Craig should have been in his room. Tweek stared sullenly at him, sensing the nurse quizzically overseeing their encounter from behind him.

"I think you look better in skinny jeans." Craig winked at him, then walked away.

* * *

**Slowly, slowly, letting you know more and more about Tweek - why he's so disturbed, and such. Please review. **


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